Portrait of Just Being There
by paper.white
Summary: If the table was a boat, and if he was the captain of that boat, then Audrey was an enormous, towering block in the middle of the sea made for smashing wayward ships into smithereens.


My take on how Percy met Audrey. Oneshot. Enjoy.

**Disclaimer: **Characters and other recognizable concepts from the books are the sole property of J.K Rowling. The song _All My Loving_ is by the Beatles.

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**Portrait of Just Being There**

The girl across the street was singing, and somehow, he failed to understand why.

_Why would anybody be singing anything these days? _The thought punctured holes into his mind through the jumble of words and notes that tumbled and rolled along the avenue. Other than a dirge, he supposed that there wasn't any reason in the world to sing.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was back, the Ministry was infiltrated, Dumbledore was dead, and Harry Potter was nowhere to be found.

And that girl, that Muggle girl, was _still singing_.

Did he happen to mention that she was a Muggle? If anything, that was almost as bad as being Harry Potter. Although he did somewhat find their contraptions slightly absurd, he couldn't deny that they were just as human as they were. He'd been reading a lot more lately, and he had a theory. If the nonmagical world ceased to exist, the definition of "magical" would be moot—otherwise, invalid. They would just be _there_. And he believed that he'd spent enough of his life just being…there.

He was Percy Weasley, younger brother to Bill Weasley and Charlie Weasley, the Golden Pair. They would always be a cut above the rest of them, but he'd never grudge them for it. They had given him something to look up to in their dilapidated, antiquated Burrow, and he'd worked hard to achieve enough to consider himself capable of something in the world. And yet still, he was just there.

He was Percy Weasley, older brother to Fred and George Weasley, otherwise known as The Bane of His Existence. He couldn't possibly label them as the _Banes_ of His Existence, because he considered them a unit. Without Fred, there couldn't be a George. Without George, where would Fred be? Driven insane, he supposed. Not that he didn't think they were already insane, he'd just thought that Fred would shift from creating objects destructive to others to creating objects destructive to solely _himself. _His brother truly was a git of the first degree. George's mode of insanity was somewhat more tolerable. Not _quite_ a git, but dangerously close. Ah, well. Either way, they had their Weasley Wizard Wheezes and he was, had always been, just _there_.

He had always just been _there_ even when Ron was born and when Ginny had followed afterwards. Ron was Harry Potter's best friend, and Ginny had the distinction of being the only girl born into their name for… well, a very long time. He'd forgotten precisely how long. He could, however, count back to the moment when he was no longer required to remember minutiae of this sort.

Yes, he definitely could.

Thinking about this, he quickly gulped down the last of his tea, little caring that it scalded his tongue, throat, and brought tears to his eyes. He rustled the paper in front of him distractedly and sat back on the spindly-legged chair, squinting up at the quaint wooden sign that squeaked gently above his head. It was a Muggle café, which was as far as he knew. He wasn't quite sure what he was doing there. All he knew was that he'd thought of getting away from the Ministry for a while. As he passed a hand over his eyes and surveyed the empty road, he wondered why he hadn't yet heaved up his stomach. It was as much a miracle as anything else.

Well, except for _that_. The girl, he meant.

He listened for a moment, staring blankly at a line of words from the Daily Prophet without actually reading them, instead trying to truly, simply just _listen_ as note after note, word after word, drifted from the girl's lips into the air.

"Close your eyes and I'll kiss you, tomorrow I'll miss you; remember that I'll always be true…"

_Better than Celestina Warbeck,_ he thought vaguely at the unfamiliar tune.

"… And then while I'm away, I'll write home ev'ry day, and I'll send all my loving to you…"

He lifted his eyes over the top of the newspaper, trying to convince himself that he wasn't being a dirty stalker, but a silent observer from across the street. The thought in itself was utterly ridiculous. He wasn't a _stalker, _for Merlin's sake. He'd only ever seen the girl today. Well, all right, so he hadn't actually seen her, per se; he'd gotten glimpses from his periphery at being lost in his dark despair and was chiefly alerted of her existence by her singing.

"I'll pretend that I'm kissing the lips that I'm missing, and hope that my dreams will come true; and then while I'm away, I'll write home ev'ry day, and I'll send all my loving to you."

At a glance, he could already tell that Ginny had already outstripped the girl's height. She sat cross-legged on a barstool, with a pad of paper bound by thick, black spirals of metal. He thought back to Muggle Studies, and considered the object a notebook. Only…the girl didn't appear to be taking notes. Her hands flew across the paper loosely at some points, tightened in varying areas at others. Her honey-blonde hair, for all that she tied it back with a ribbon, soon fluttered loose in the wind. The ribbon curled around one, long leg of the stool, as though reluctant to be too far away from the girl and whatever she was doing. Her otherwise white oxford shirt was splattered with paints in blue, red, and purple and rolled up to her elbows. Only the black trousers she wore remained unsoiled. Occasionally, she smiled. And then she sang.

"All my loving, I will send to you… all my loving, darling I'll be true. Close your eyes and I'll kiss you…"

He found himself relaxing into her voice, which, he thought again, was _definitely_ not Celestina Warbeck. The smoky, delicate quality of it lingered in his ears even when she paused, bending into her work. He shut his eyes, waiting for the song to resume, and to forget. Even if it was just for a little while longer, because he couldn't take seeing the solidly black print glaring at him from the front-page, the ant-like lines of text that crawled forth in his vision. If she could only sing. Just a little longer.

It was when he started to doze off did he flinch at the screech of metal against stone.

"Just tea, thank you," a soft, musical voice said to the clucking of a waitress.

He opened his eyes to find the girl across the street sitting across the table, her pad of papers before her, her face tipped downwards to give her hands better access to tying back her hair. Presently, she glanced up, her hands tucking away the strands that still persisted to tickle her nose and her chin. It occurred to him that she had very light green eyes. It was almost as if a candle flickered behind her irises, even though he knew absolutely that the notion was impossible.

_Nothing like Penelope._

As soon as the thought was born, he strangled it and looked back at the girl politely.

"May I help you?"

The girl glanced briefly down at his proffered hand and mutely stuck out her own into the air, smudged with gray and black. His fingers wavered in the air before falling lamely to the table. She chuckled. His ears flushed and he reached out for his newspaper.

"I'm sorry—I just—"

The tip of her index finger pressed down the top edge of the paper to the table. "Did that picture just move?" Her words came slowly, as if she hardly believed them herself. "I understand that pictures sometimes look as if they're moving, but I could swear to God and back that the one on your newspaper glared at me. As in, narrowed its eyes, wrinkled its nose, and turned down its mouth _glared_ at me."

"No, it didn't," he said quickly.

She frowned back at the picture, shook her head, and lifted her finger away thoughtfully. He was aware of the way she watched him in amusement as he rolled the paper and tucked it safely away into his coat, still feeling his ears burning against his hair. Which, naturally, burned of its own fiery red accord.

"Hiding something?" she asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"Er, no."

"I think you are." She glanced up at the waitress as her order arrived, clinking lightly on the table. "Thank you."

"I'm not," he held.

She stirred her tea, swirling the steam lazily with her other hand as it rose into the air. "Of course you are. Everyone hides something from somebody else."

"What do you mean?"

"One person might hide their feelings from the ones they love. Another might hide a child from reality. Or, they might just be hiding something more material and just as intriguing," she nodded at him over her cup, "like that newspaper."

He stared at her without speaking, attempting to make sense of the situation, and whether or not he was entering a philosophical discussion with a stranger who, not ten minutes ago, had been on the other side of the street singing as if she hadn't a care in the world. In the minutes that he took to struggle with his mind, she seemed perfectly content to sit. To sit and to trace outlines on the plain, navy cover of her pad of papers and sip her tea. Her features were utterly serene and untroubled. _Not a care in the world_.

He inhaled deeply. And then she spoke.

"Alternately, _you_ might be hiding."

His hands wound into fists under the table when he exhaled. "I might be hiding?" he repeated.

She nodded, flicking those exquisitely light eyes up at him.

"Excuse me if I sound rude—"

"Not at all."

"—But I don't see how you have any right to accuse me of hiding anything," he said stiffly. "One moment, you're across the street, and the next, sitting across from me and sipping tea as if we actually know each other."

"Well, no need to get our knickers in a twist now," she chided mildly, setting down her tea and pushing it away. She sat up, regarding him gravely. "Hello, my name is Audrey Dashwood, and yes, I am _very_ well aware of the fact I share the same last name as those two wonderful protagonists by Jane Austen. I am an only child. How do you do?"

He struggled to look as if he understood everything she'd told him and failed. Miserably.

"Who is Jane Austen?" he asked hopelessly, flinching when she gasped and clapped her hands to her mouth.

"Oh, you poor thing! What heathens snatched you away as a child, do tell?"

Slowly, he began to count down from ten. The girl—Audrey, he amended bemusedly—waited patiently. He sighed loudly. The temple just over his right eye pounded. He decided that he might as well give up now, while his head hadn't exploded yet. Merlin. _Muggles._

"My name," he began deliberately, "is Percy Weasley. I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I have two older brothers, a pair of buffoons, a…Ron, and a sister. Under the circumstances, I think I'm doing very well, thank you for asking."

"A…Ron," she echoed.

He shrugged. Ron had always just been Ron. He was neither here nor there.

"It's difficult."

"I can tell. And the buffoons?" She placed her hands over her mouth in an attempt to conceal her smile at the pained look he gave at the words.

He tapped his fingers against the tabletop impatiently. "Twins. My brothers. Or would you rather call them heathens?"

"No, they're your brothers. Brothers are buffoons, annoying, insufferable, incorrigible, whatever. But never heathens."

"You just said that you were an only child," he pointed out, puzzling at the way her eyes brightened.

"Yes, but you see, I like to draw."

Percy began to carefully form an analogy in his head. If the table was a boat, and if he was the captain of that boat, then Audrey was an enormous, towering block in the middle of the sea made for smashing wayward ships into smithereens. The image was extremely vivid in his head. He filed it away for future reference for any instance that someone dared to accuse him of being born without an imagination. His imagination was perfectly intact, as anyone with eyes could see.

The only thing that seemed to be missing was his patience.

He narrowed his eyes, laid out his hands flat against the tabletop, and looked up at her. "You like to draw," he said, feeling like a parrot.

She smiled then, and from where he was sitting, he drew an involuntary breath. He shook his head a moment later—_impossible_—and blinked as she flipped rapidly through her papers. The movements of the paper around the spiral blended into the hazy outline of a half circle. Laid flat on the table, it reminded him distantly of a setting sun. When she finally found what she was looking for, she hummed and placed the pad flat against the table.

"That's what I said, Mr. Weasley. I live art, breathe art, eat art, and usually try to draw art as I know how. Do you see that shop across the street, with the floor-length windows and canvases hanging about?"

"Where you were sitting, yes," he studied the windows. "You didn't…_do_ all of those?"

He glanced back at her and she chuckled, "No, not all. My uncle owns the gallery and my aunt is the painter for the majority of them. I have about two pieces, one of which is stuck somewhere at the back. That small one at the bottom, though? That's mine."

"Well, no wonder I didn't see it from back here."

"I didn't think you would, unless you were Superman."

"Who?"

She gaped at him. "You don't know who Jane Austen is, and now you're telling me you're a male who has never heard of _Superman_?"

Percy just looked at her. She sighed.

"Never mind. Anyway, my aunt came up with the brilliant idea of giving me a set of fifty colored pencils for my fifth birthday. For my sixth, she offered pastels and a drawing pad. For my seventh, she gave me lessons. From there," she traced the edge of her paper, "I was a goner."

As she lifted up her teacup to sip absently at her cold tea, he sat back and contemplated her words. He didn't quite understand some of the things she had talked about, but he hoped that he got the gist of it. She was someone madly in love with art. He wondered how she'd feel if he told her that he could show her paintings in which people could greet one hello, walk about, and strike up a conversation. And then, he rubbed the edge of his jaw, wondering why he was thinking of such a thing in the first place. He'd never been one for impossibilities. Why start now?

"What about you?"

He jerked. "Sorry?"

She slowly flipped a piece of paper over and examined the blank sheet, drawing out a stick (her drawing instrument, he presumed) from behind her ear. "What do you like to do?"

He considered her question. "I like to read, I suppose. I like to work."

She snorted loudly, drawing her pad closer to her. He eyed her warily. She waved at him to continue.

"All right, then. Er." He felt a little foolish as a thought occurred to him. He ran a hand through his hair resignedly. _To hell with it—I've got nothing else to say for myself_. "My brother George likes to tell me that I have a talent for bossing people around rivaled only by Mum and Hermione Granger. I used to be Head Boy at out school, not because I like to boss people, but because I like to think that I can live up to the bar that Bill and Charlie have set for the rest of us. They're utterly brilliant, you see, but I like to believe that I'm different from the rest of my family. Not different like an old chair, like Fred says, the git"—Audrey rolled her eyes—"and not like Ron, who probably hates me by now. And Ginny…"

"Your sister?"

"Yes," he said quietly, looking down at his hands. He curled them into fists. There was also the fact that he liked to think he would make his mother proud. There was also the fact that he liked to believe he could reform his father. And then there was the problem that he hadn't, and that those were no longer facts.

Presently, he heard her stop scratching about on her paper, and raised his eyes to meet the light green gaze that offered only one emotion to him: sympathy.

He cleared his throat in an effort to salvage himself. "My brothers are buffoons, but never heathens. They're…" And he stopped.

Her slender fingers grasped his, and he held on. To silence, to her, to whatever it was that was there, he held on.

"Do you know," she began at length, "how I was able to come up with such a convincing list of traits for brotherhood?"

He nearly rolled his eyes. "No, and I never will, because you answer everything in such convoluted, cryptic ways, I wonder how any normal person understands you in the first place."

"That goes to show how normal _you_ are. Now stop interrupting," she told him briskly, releasing his hand to wander back to her pencil. His fingers clutched at air. "If you want to know, I was able to because I draw."

"Of course." Why hadn't he seen that coming?

"That painting I pointed out to you at the window was my uncle and his brother," she paused, "my dad. Dad, now, doesn't approve of having me live off what he likes to call my hobby. He is disappointed in my uncle for allowing me to practice my hobby like I can actually survive off of it—"

"Which you can."

"Which I can," she agreed. "So when I drew them, I brought out their mutual thoughts. Dad thinks my uncle is incorrigible. My uncle believes my dad has only gotten more insufferable and further up his arse than he'd originally thought possible. Percy, dear," she interjected severely, "it's true. He's an arse."

"I wasn't going to complain about it," he objected weakly. "But isn't that description a bit much?"

"Not at all. I was merely stating a truth that he admitted himself after the portrait."

He paused in thought. She smiled angelically at him over the drawing pad that nearly obscured her face.

"Do you understand _now_, what I've been trying to teach you about drawing?"

"I understand that I think you've been trying to insult me, yes."

"That's terribly blunt," she commented, concentrating on tearing a sheet away from the pad. "But I suppose that I shouldn't be too offended, considering."

"Considering what? That you drew me?" he snorted.

"Yes," she said frankly. "Here and," she waved a hand in the air, "across the street."

"You were _spying_ on me."

"_You _were listening to me sing. That's a pretty even trade-off, I should think. A song for a truth."

"Drawings aren't necessarily truths," he objected, raising his eyebrow when she flashed him a glance. "Some of the best art I've ever seen have lied to me plenty of times."

"The truth is in the lie," she countered.

He opened his mouth, but found himself oddly silenced. He would have accused her of using _Silencio_ on his person if it weren't for the fact that he knew she wasn't capable of it in the first place. In the second place, a small part of him whispered that he needed his ears cleaned, and that he talked too loudly, and if Fred and George lied all the time to _his_ truths—where did that put him? "It isn't," he still dared to say. "It isn't."

"Is it?" she asked, watching him with that same sympathy she held for him before. "You can hide from people, but you can't hide from art."

She slipped the paper and its sketch across the table. He was slumped in his chair, a newspaper spread out before him, his fingers gripping the edges as if it would disappear and leave him bare at any given moment.

"You were hiding behind your newspaper," she said. "What, if I may ask, were you hiding from?"

He stared at the small, unobtrusive cup hidden in the shadow that the newspaper rendered and the feet that shied away into the shadow of the overhang. It was such a beautiful day, too, he noticed. No wonder she'd been singing.

"As if you don't know already," he murmured. She merely grinned.

"So what are you doing here," she prompted good-humoredly, "When you could be out _there_?"

_But he was always there._ He blinked up at her.

He was a fool. And an idiot, and a pompous prat, and many more extremely creative things that he would just have to think of later.

He pushed his glasses higher on his nose. "I don't know."

"That's the spirit!" she sang out in approval, rising from her seat and leaving out money in spite of the horrified glance he threw at her. She rolled her eyes and brushed her hair out of her face. "Before I go, I'm going to ask you if you've _at the very least_ heard of the Beatles, and I'm going to pray fervently to God that the answer is yes."

He squinted, considering her question. She waited hopefully, bobbing on the balls of her feet and twirling her drawing instrument (wasn't it a _pencil?)_ back and forth along her fingers. Finally, he raised a finger.

"What kind of beetles?"

"… Never mind." And with painstaking effort, she shut her eyes, opened them, and waved halfheartedly as she started to walk away. "We'll work on popular culture the next time we meet, all right?"

Next time? _Next time_?

"There's a next time?" he wondered out loud, growing steadily more perplexed when she smirked. She must have been one of those fortune-tellers, if she was so sure about having a next time like this in the future. He wasn't even sure he'd want to risk going into Muggle London anymore in the near future. They'd be keeping track of him by now, he was sure. They'd know he'd had tea with a girl, Audrey Dashwood, and then they might follow her, and then—

Oh, bollocks. _Audrey_.

"Audrey!"

She turned, wide-eyed; her hand had frozen in midair where she attempted to stick her pencil behind her ear again. "Not five steps, and you already miss me?"

"Promise me we'll meet again?" he asked hesitantly, and told himself it was only to make sure that she was still alive when everything was over.

"Well, I haven't finished your portrait yet, so I'd like it if we did."

"My portrait?"

"Yes," she said bemusedly, tapping her papers. "I was doing one right there while enjoying my tea with you."

"Ah." He sat back. "Yes."

She smiled at him, waved again, blew her hair out of her face, and strode off purposefully down the road. He watched as she politely greeted an old woman and her dog. She stopped at the approach of a bouncing ball, catching it to toss back to the child across the street. And then she was whistling. As he listened, he realized that it was the same tune she had sung earlier and hid a smile, adding his own money to the amount she had left. She wasn't any Penelope, and he was almost certain that the portrait she did of him would do little to highlight any of what he considered _positive_.

And yet, he liked the way she made _there_ sound.

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So. After going MIA on this site for a bit, I remembered why I loved J.K Rowling and wrote this. Hope you liked it! Please review.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! - Mari


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